


Proprietary

by foxfireflamequeen



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-25
Updated: 2017-07-25
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:15:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxfireflamequeen/pseuds/foxfireflamequeen
Summary: Viktor says, “I’m going to cut my hair.”





	Proprietary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [guety](https://archiveofourown.org/users/guety/gifts).



 

 

“I’m going to cut my hair.”

Chris stops in the middle of the street and takes his phone away from his ear to double-check. It’s definitely Viktor’s name on the screen, and that sounds like Viktor’s voice on the other end, but Chris must have misheard.

“Viktor?” he asks, just to make sure. Someone bumps into him from behind and curses at him in English, so Chris sidesteps the crowd to duck into an open café.

“Yes,” Viktor says, thin and reedy in Chris’s ear. “I’m going to cut my hair.”

“What?” Chris says instinctively. “No, don’t do that.”

There’s a short pause, like Viktor didn’t expect him to say that. Chris doesn’t know what else he could’ve expected. They’ve had each other’s numbers for longer than Viktor has remembered Chris’s name, and over the years exchanged maybe a total of a hundred text messages, most of them hotel room booty calls after a competition.

“Oh,” Viktor says after a long moment. “You don’t want me to do cut my hair.”

“Of course not,” Chris says, baffled. “I love your hair!”

He can hear Viktor breathing on the other end of the line, quick and heavy. He sounds—actually, now that Chris thinks about it, he doesn’t sound very okay.

“Viktor,” Chris starts. “Is everything alright?”

“What?” Viktor says, distracted, but that’s not unusual. “No. No, I’m fine,” he adds, which wasn’t quite what Chris asked, and hangs up before Chris can say anything else. Chris tries to call back, but all he gets is Viktor’s cheerful voicemail greeting. He sends several texts, some teasing and some openly concerned, and they go unanswered.

It’s strange, but Viktor is strange sometimes. Chris is already late for practice; he doesn’t think too hard on it.

The first photos surface three weeks later. The New Viktor Nikiforov, everyone calls him, with short, fluffy hair that falls over his eyes like his long hair never did. The New Viktor Nikiforov has a brand new image, a bright new future. He’s more _masculine_ , more _assertive_ , more _handsome_ ; he’s shed the childhood androgyny and emerged a new _man_.

The New Viktor Nikiforov ignores Chris completely, when Chris is in Moscow a few weeks later, and then again when Viktor visits Geneva for a photo op. They’ve been friends for three years at this point, and having sex semi-regularly for two. This is a little less easy to ignore.

 

 

 

 _did we break up :(((_ Chris sends Viktor. Viktor doesn’t reply.

 

 

 

The first time he sees the New Viktor Nikiforov in person, it’s at Skate America. By then there isn’t a single person not talking about how much _better_ this Viktor is (he hasn’t changed at all), how much _stronger_ his jumps are (they’re just as perfect as they’ve always been), and how many people must want to fuck him now (no more than usual). The New Viktor Nikiforov’s face lights up when he sees Chris (which is no different from before), and he launches himself forward with unmitigated enthusiasm despite Yakov grumping loudly at them both.

“You’re here!” he says, and shakes his fringe in Chris’s face like he hasn’t been ignoring him for half a year. “Do you like it?”

There’s very little of it, compared to before. Chris snakes a hand into it and gives it a tug, and Viktor’s eyes flutter closed, showy. “I like this part,” he murmurs into Viktor’s ear.

“Good,” Viktor chirps, and, to Chris’s surprise, pulls away from him entirely. “I was worried. You did mention you liked it long.”

Viktor’s smile is sharp, like it would be for the kind of reporters who make insinuations about him sleeping his way into judges’ favor. Chris blinks, startled, but Viktor has already turned back to Yakov, tossing his head the way he would to get his ponytail over his shoulder, except he doesn’t have a ponytail anymore.

Chris has a feeling he fucked up, but no idea how. Josef looks from him to Viktor with his eyebrows raised, but he waits until they’re out of earshot before putting a hand on Chris’s arm.

“Don’t mind him,” he says. “Focus on your skate. If he’s trying so obviously to throw you off, clearly he thinks of you as a contender.”

Chris looks over his shoulder at Viktor, leaning against the wall and all but yawning as Yakov runs him through last minute advice for his program. The New Viktor Nikiforov, according to figure skating press, has no contender at all.

Chris doesn’t imagine Viktor thinks any differently.

 

 

 

Viktor places first in the short. He’ll skate last in the free.

Chris comes in fifth. Josef blames the run-in with Viktor ruining his focus, but it’s not Viktor’s fault Chris messed up his 4T-3T so badly it wasn’t even counted as a combination.

“You’ll catch up in the free,” Josef tells him, casting dark looks at Viktor across the rink, smiling his mega-watt smile for the press.

“I know,” Chris says. His costume itches, sticky from sweat, and his mascara’s clumped badly. He debates just wiping off his face before getting to the hotel, but then there are cameras pointed at him, too.

 

 

 

Chris doesn’t have delusions of grandeur, not really. He likes to win, that’s why he’s here, but he’s not hoping for anything more than silver. Josef hugs him close when his FS scores show up at the kiss and cry with a large 1 next to it, and Jason and Matthieu greet him in the green room like he already won gold. He supposes he did, considering the actual gold will be spoken for in the next six minutes. Nowadays everyone really just competes for silver.

“He’s not so pretty anymore,” Matthieu jokes as they watch Viktor step onto the ice through the small screen. “Maybe you’ll actually stand on top of the podium today, Chris.”

Matthieu is four years older than Viktor, with at least eight high-ranking Federation connections in three countries, and Chris is not stupid enough to do anything but laugh with him, even if the comment makes something uncomfortable prickle at the base of his neck. Jason laughs too. Chris can’t tell if it’s genuine; they’ve all mastered the art of being genuine in front of cameras.

“It’s a pity,” Jason says. Viktor lands a flawless quad flip. “His hair was really quite magnificent. He looks so—normal, now.”

Viktor raises his leg into a Biellmann, the only male skater in his twenties to still do that. He drops into a sit spin and extends his arms more gracefully than Chris can manage anymore, his limbs too thick and stiff from weight training and his latest growth spurt. There’s no version of what Viktor does on the ice that can be called _normal_ , long hair or not.

“Maybe his hair was insured,” Matthieu says, and he and Jason burst into laughter all over again. Chris smiles and nods along.

“I wonder if he’ll sell it,” he says after a moment of thought. Matthieu snorts, clapping him on the back, and Chris preens a little. The New Viktor Nikiforov might not be his friend, but he can always make new ones.

“Maybe I should reinvent myself too,” he adds. He’s mostly joking. Mostly.

 

 

 

“Mr. Nikiforov, do you think your stylistic choices had any effect on your scores today?”

Matthieu scoffs loudly on Viktor’s other side. Chris barely stops himself from frowning. Another camera flashes at them, trying to capture Viktor’s reaction to the question, probably. Chris doesn’t have to turn his head to know there won’t be one. Viktor has been receiving questions like this for longer than Chris has been in the senior division, and his smile never, ever falters.

“You got a haircut this week, yes?” Viktor addresses the reporter, voice cool and clear. The man is almost bald. “Do you think that had anything to do with you being assigned to interview the World Champion today?”

He tosses his head, and Chris leans away automatically, too used to being smacked in the face by thick, wayward braids. There’s nothing to avoid, but his small mistake dissipates the tension in the room.

“As you can see,” Viktor reaches out to pat Chris’s shoulder with a pretty, practiced laugh. Everyone in the room chuckles along with him. “Not much has changed.”

“Mr. Giacometti,” pipes up another reporter. “How do you feel about Mr. Nikiforov’s new hair?”

Chris won silver at the Skate America. He’s going to the Grand Prix Final, and the first question he gets all evening is _how do you feel about Mr. Nikiforov’s hair_. Chris is annoyed and almost says so, but Viktor goes still next to him. His hand is still on Chris’s shoulder. His fingers clench, just a little, and Chris thinks, _oh_.

He pretends to consider it, pouting just a little because his lip gloss was expensive and he wants it to catch the light. Then he leans close to the mic.

“I think,” he says. “That I’d look quite lovely with blond hair again, don’t you think?”

The room falls silent. Out of the corner of his eyes, Chris sees Viktor’s whole head swivel to look at him, mouth parted in surprise. It doesn’t last long, of course. Before the next camera flash Viktor’s attention is back on the reporters, and Chris focuses on pasting a bright smile to his own lips. The effort is worth it, for the way Viktor tilts ever-so-slightly in his direction when he says, “Can we have the next question, please?”

 

 

 

Matthieu squints at Chris after the interview. “Weren’t you blond when you were a kid?”

Chris shrugs. “Maybe with a bleach job I’ll be pretty enough for the next silver, too,” he says.

Matthieu’s cheeks go an ugly, blotchy pink. Chris leans down to peck them anyway.

“I’ll see you at the Finals,” he says, then pauses. The “darling!” is tacked on a little too late, but it rolls off his tongue like it was made for him. This is a _reinvention_ Chris can work with.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, right on cue.

 

 

 

Viktor’s door is left ajar for him, as always. Viktor himself is lounging on top of the covers on his stomach, freshly showered in just a robe. He looks up when Chris closes the door and flashes him a smile.

“I thought you were mad at me,” Chris says, flopping down next to him. Their exhibition skates are tomorrow, so he’s not getting his hopes up for much tonight. Besides, it’s not like sex is all they do together.

Viktor shrugs, putting his head back down on his arms. His pale hair droops over his eyes, still damp, but not sweat-greasy like it was earlier. Chris still doesn’t know if he likes it.

“Maybe,” Viktor says, and yawns. He has a bad habit of not covering his mouth when he does that, but it’s still disgustingly cute. “You don’t look cherubic anymore either, you know.”

The New Viktor Nikiforov isn’t quite as elfin as he used to be, but he’s as graceful on the ice as he is off. Chris, on the other hand, still skates to classical music picked by his ballet instructor, and when he stands in front of the mirror in his costume he feels—wrong.

“I’m going to cut my hair,” he says, impulsive. Viktor blinks at him sleepily.

“Okay,” he says.

“I want an undercut,” Chris rolls over to face him. Viktor smells like dates, which means he hasn’t changed his shampoo or conditioner. “And maybe I’ll get a perm.”

“A perm,” Viktor repeats, raising an eyebrow. Chris stops to imagine himself with a perm on top of his natural curls, and fails.

“Maybe just crop it short so it’s not so curly anymore,” he amends. “And I want to go blond, but only like, at the top.”

“Okay,” Viktor says again, and Chris narrows his eyes at him.

“What if I wanted a rainbow undercut,” he challenges, and Viktor shrugs.

“Upkeep would be—annoying,” he says, accent heavy in the way that means he’s having trouble with his English. He yawns again. “Is that all? Rainbow undercut and blond at the top?”

Chris reaches out to push Viktor’s fringe out of his eyes. When he pulls away the pale hair falls back to where it was, so he cups Viktor’s forehead and leaves his hand there. Viktor’s eyes are too pretty to keep hidden; Chris doesn’t like this haircut after all.

“It looks good on you,” he says. “You look good.”

Viktor ducks his head into his arms, as much as he can with Chris holding him there. His cheek goes warm under Chris’s palm.

“I do?” he asks, a strange vulnerability in his voice that Chris has never heard before. Viktor doesn’t always care what other people think of him, but apparently no one thought to tell the New Viktor Nikiforov that he’s still the prettiest skater in the world, long hair or short.

“Of course!” Chris says, as bright and honest as he knows how.

Viktor laughs, only a little, and Chris is suddenly reminded of Viktor’s voice over the phone, shaking apart as he said, _I’m going to cut my hair_. He doesn’t ask if Viktor felt like that too, before; if he looked into the mirror and failed to recognize the person in the reflection. Chris has no idea how it happened exactly, but he imagines kitchen scissors and stray hairs all over Viktor’s apartment floor, Makkachin running in circles around Viktor’s shins. Nothing else seems dramatic enough for the loss of Viktor’s beautiful hair.

“You’d look good too,” Viktor pinches his cheek, hard, like he knows what Chris is thinking and wants him to _stop_. Chris yelps and jerks away, and Viktor sniggers at him. “I’m going to miss the curls though.”

“That’s what I meant to say!” Chris latches onto it, relieved. “That I would miss the long hair, not that you—shouldn’t.”

“Hm,” Viktor says. He doesn’t sound like he believes him. With good reason, probably, since Chris is lying.

Surprising the audience isn’t Chris’s thing, not the way it is Viktor’s. But Chris looks at the way Viktor’s short hair frames his face, making his jawline more prominent and his cheekbones even sharper, and thinks of what he could do, tomorrow, in front of all of America.

“Get up,” he says, bolting upright and pulling at Viktor’s arm.

“What? No,” Viktor says, but he sits up anyway. “I thought we were going to sleep.”

“We can sleep later,” Chris says, already halfway across the room and rummaging in Viktor’s suitcase. He tosses clothes and underwear at Viktor’s head. “Come on, I need your help.”

Viktor sighs, long and heavy. Then he says, “Okay.”

 

 

 

They ask for a stool to be brought up for the bathroom, but end up putting it on top of half a dozen towels spread over the carpet in front of the dressing table mirror. Viktor complains about the lack of visibility and makes Chris hold a small vanity mirror up at odd angles until Chris’s arm aches, but he does it, standing behind Chris and shearing diligently at his hair.

“I’m not bleaching it,” he says nearly an hour later, when more of Chris’s hair is on the floor than on his head. He clicks the brand new clipper off. “You’re going to a salon tomorrow.”

Chris feels the back of his neck. “Who cut yours?”

“My _stylist_ ,” Viktor says, like it should be obvious. In hindsight, it probably should.

Chris can’t stop touching his hair. The undercut is so _soft_. His curls are almost gone, just a bit of wave left at the top of his head. Josef is going to _kill_ him, and if he doesn’t, Chris’s maman surely will.

“How do I look?” he asks, even though he knows the answer. Viktor is no professional, and his skills on the ice don’t transfer to cutting hair, but already Chris thinks he looks older. More _mature_ ; unlike Viktor, who might look more _masculine_ , but who’s as young as he was six months ago, no matter what everyone says.

“Like a figure skater cut your hair with drugstore clippers in a hotel room at one in the morning,” Viktor snips, but his eyes are terribly fond. Chris doesn’t tell him that this is how it needed to be, that nothing else would have been _climactic_ enough. Not for the beginning of the New Christophe Giacometti.

“Good,” he says instead, eyes still on the mirror, fingers still in his hair. “That’s good.”

 

 

 

It’s less good when he goes home and his maman actually tries to ground him like he isn’t a full-grown adult, but it could be worse.

 

 

 

The New Christophe Giacometti, which no one calls him, has bleached-blond hair with a dark (not rainbow) undercut, and after coming third at the GPF, he changes his routines entirely for Euros, where he places fourth. The New Christophe Giacometti goes to Worlds with a brand new short program with sensuous techno music that puts him in first place, above even Viktor, and wins his first silver at the World Championships.

The New Christophe Giacometti doesn’t laugh along with the mean comments about his friend in the green room or at the post-comp banquets. He stays friends with Jason and Matthieu, and makes a name for himself among his competition as the nicest, friendliest skater, if a little too handsy. Reinventing himself isn’t as hard as he thought it might be.

The New Viktor Nikiforov keeps winning gold, one after the other after the other. He’s untouchable, leaving the rest of them to scrabble for silver like mice after scraps, and his smiles only get wider and brighter for the press, for his fans, for everyone but his old coach and his beloved dog.

Eventually, the New Viktor Nikiforov stops being new, and the New Christophe Giacometti settles back into Chris. There are some things he loses, but he keeps the hair, and the music, and Viktor.

 

 

 

Chris opens his apartment door, and Viktor is on the other side, holding Makkachin in his arms like the dog doesn’t weigh a good sixty pounds. He doesn’t wait for an invitation, just walks right in and drops Makkachin in the middle of the living room. Makkachin barks at Chris’s cat, who shoots into the kitchen and hides on top of the refrigerator.

“ _Viktor_ ,” Chris says, exasperated, but doesn’t continue, because Makkachin is better trained than Viktor will ever be. “Where are your bags?”

Viktor stares at him blankly. Chris would be concerned, but they’ve been past that point for over a year now. He closes the door and nudges Viktor towards the sofa, but Viktor stays where he is.

“Chris,” he says. “I want to cut my hair.”

“Okay,” Chris says, instead of pointing out that he should have gone to a Russian salon, like he did sensibly the first time, instead of flying over to Switzerland for what will undoubtedly be a terrible haircut. “I’ll get the scissors.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are love, and you can also [reblog on tumblr](http://foxfireflamequeen.tumblr.com/post/163661733543/proprietary)!


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